In a typical computer environment, a Local Area Network (LAN) allows for one or more computer servers to be connected to several computers such that the resources of each server are available to each of the connected computers. In this system, a dedicated keyboard, video monitor, and cursor control device may be employed for each computer and computer server.
To maintain proper operation of the LAN, a system administrator must maintain and monitor the individual servers and computers. This maintenance frequently requires the system administrator to perform numerous tasks from the user console located at the server or computer. For example, to reboot a computer or to add or delete files, the system administrator is often required to operate the server or computer from its local user console, which may be located at a substantial distance from the system administrator's computer. Therefore, to accomplish the task of system administration, the system administrator must often travel far distances to access the local user consoles of remotely located servers and computers.
As an alternative, dedicated cables may be installed from each remotely located server and computer to the system administrator's user console to allow the system administrator to fully access and operate the remote computer equipment. However, this alternative requires substantial wiring and wire harnessing, both of which may require tremendous cost. Additionally, as the distance between the system administrator's user console and the remote computer equipment increases, a decrease in the quality of the transmitted signal often results. Thus, dedicated cables between the system administrator's user console and remote computer equipment may not be a feasible alternative.
In addition to system administration, space is also an important concern for many networked computer environments, especially large-scale operations such as data-centers, server-farms, web-hosting facilities, and call-centers. These environments typically require space to house a keyboard, video monitor, and cursor control device for each piece of computer equipment in addition to all of the wiring required to connect and power these components. Furthermore, space is also required to house all of the network wiring. As more equipment is added to a computer network, it becomes more probable that the space required for the equipment and associated cabling will exceed the space allotted for the network. Therefore, network architecture, equipment size, and available space are important issues when designing an effective computer network environment.
One method of reducing the space required to house a computer network is to eliminate non-essential equipment (i.e., keyboard, video monitor, cursor control device, etc.). Elimination of this equipment also eliminates the wiring associated with such equipment. This equipment and its associated wiring may be eliminated if a system administrator is able to access the remote computers from one user console.
However, when the video monitor is located at a great distance from the video source, the video signal may become greatly attenuated. This attenuation is generally frequency dependent, with the greatest amount of frequency attenuation occurring in the high frequencies. To solve this problem, high-frequency boost circuitry is placed at a location near the video source and selectively switched in or out of the video source either automatically or manually. However, the high-frequency boost circuitry is typically set (i.e., to be in or out of the video source) and tends to remain fixed once set.
A keyboard, video monitor, and mouse (“KVM”) switching system may be utilized to allow one or more user workstations to select and control any one of a plurality of remote computers via a central switching unit. Such systems are well known in the art and have been used by system administrators for at least 10 years. Specifically, a KVM switching system allows a system user to control a remote computer using a local user workstation's keyboard, video monitor, and cursor control device as if these local devices are directly connected to the remote computer. In this manner, a system user may access and control a plurality of remote computers, such as servers, from a single location (i.e., the location of the user workstation). The system user may select a specific remote computer to access or control using any one of a variety of methods known in the art including pushing a button that corresponds with the desired remote computer and is located on the face of a computer management system component, selecting the computer from a list displayed on a computer management system component's LCD or LED display, pressing one or more hot keys on the local user workstation's keyboard (e.g., F1, ALT-F1, F2, etc.), selecting the remote computer from a list displayed on the user workstation's monitor by pointing to it or scrolling to it using the user workstation's keyboard and/or cursor control device, etc.
A need clearly exists for an automated high-frequency boost system and method capable of automatically correcting for high-frequency attenuation which occurs to a video signal during transmission over long lengths of cabling. Furthermore, such a system may be able to determine the amount of degradation experienced by a video signal during video transmission to intelligently enable high-frequency boost circuitry located at the transmitting end of the video signal to compensate for the high-frequency degradation of the video signal. Such a system would aid in computing environments such as server farms, call centers, computer networking facilities, etc.